The Discovery
by Chris Boyce
Summary: Unsettling events unfold one misty Efrafan winter's morning. This is a chapter from my abandoned novel-length sequel to the book Watership Down.


The Discovery (was to be Chapter 5)  
  
Chris Boyce, October 1983.   
  
Avens sat under the shelter of the hedge. He was cold, damp   
and as miserable as ever a rabbit could be. The dawn was up; although   
he could hardly have seen much of it for the field was smothered by a   
thick, impenetrable haze of mist. He looked out, away from the dawn,   
over what he thought was the field below the Near Hind.  
"Is that the Ash tree?" He thought, or was it just a fold in   
the veiling curtain of mist. The rounded, heavy, almost solid air had   
penetrated deep into his fur, leaving behind only the moisture which   
it carried on its insubstantial existence. All he could do was sit,   
cold and wretched. To venture onto the featureless field would be   
stupid he thought. Surely he would wander, helplessly lost, onto the   
iron road and be cut down by a thousand enormous monsters of Inle-rah.  
As he sat he began to feel hungry but there was no grass   
anywhere near, nothing to eat even if he could see it. No one to talk   
to, he was alone with nothing but the hedge to tell him that anything   
else existed in all of Frith's world. So there he sat, get colder and   
damper as around him the blue light of an  
October dawn slowly changed to the diffused greyness of an October   
morning. Soon the fire-beings would beat the iron road once more. Soon   
the men might come....  
"Strange," he thought, "why don't they go anywhere except   
along the way of the iron road? Perhaps they need the man-things to   
show them which way to go - and if that's right then... then they go   
that way because men want them to. I can't think why they would want   
to do that though. Where's Sainfoin got to? He should have been here   
by now. Trust him not to turn up." Avens thought for a while longer,   
"Perhaps he's lost in this dawn mist?"  
"I think I'm lost." Thought Sainfoin, not fifty yards away   
from where Avens was hunched below the hedge. Sainfoin had decided to   
take the quick route from the Near Fore by cutting across the field   
instead of going by the track. A wise move, perhaps, on a clear,   
lonely day. This avoided coming too close to where any men might be,   
this was after all what he had been sent to check up on. But on a day   
like the one that lay out all around him it was, to say the least, a   
rash idea. He stopped and sat back on his hind legs for a moment and   
then sat up, ears erect and nose to the almost non-existent breeze.  
He could hear only the growing sounds of dawn and a strange kind of,   
well, a kind of burbling,  
"Not unlike a rabbit talking to himself only - Well not quite   
- whatever." Sainfoin thought. It was strange indeed. "Perhaps," he   
thought as he looked towards the sound, "I should check it and report   
back - as soon as I can find the way back that is...."  
"Oh! Where is he?" Avens said out loud. "He's always - " he   
stopped as he realized that for some time he had been talking aloud to   
the mist. In the silence that followed he turned around listening for   
anything that would tell him that anyone had been listening. "No,   
surely," he thought, "there's no one here except me. Even Sainfoin's   
lost - I think." He listened on, out of self-doubt, for the rustle of   
leaves or the crack of a twig that might betray a lurking listener -   
no sound came. Eventually, tired of keeping his ears up to get wet, he   
dropped back onto his front and laid back his ears, feeling a few   
almost frozen drops of water trickle down inside. As he dropped a leaf   
turned a few yards to his right followed by the emergence from the   
white curtain of a sodden rabbit. Sainfoin had finally arrived.  
"Hello, no problems getting here I see." said Avens   
sarcastically, barely hiding his dampened annoyance. "Nothing's   
happening here I'm afraid.  
You'll have to sit around getting wet."  
"Right." Said Sainfoin decisively. "Before you go - I was told   
to remind you to check the west junction." The Crixa is the junction   
of two tracks, barely navigable by anything other than animate   
transport. The council had, since the demise of the General, split the   
paths logically into four: the north, south, east and west tracks. For   
patrol purposes these marked the boundaries of four sectors   
corresponding to the Hear Hind, Off Hind, Near and Off  
Fore marks ground. The other marks lying between these and one or   
other of the tracks. Normally small patrols would be active at the   
outer edge of each of these sectors with a fifth operating closer in   
to pick up anything and anyone that might have slipped past the   
others. This inner patrol was derived from that which Campion had   
often led in Woundwort's time and, generally operated in plain sight   
of the warren. Beyond all these was the preserve of the true wide   
patrols, of which Campion still kept two in the field for most of the   
time. They kept to no fixed route (unlike the sector patrols) and were   
in effect autonomous units out of range of control for days at a time.   
It was common for these patrols to come back with tales of excitement   
and danger, they sometimes came back with fewer rabbits than had left.   
Campion had pruned and reorganised the patrol system which he had   
first developed under Woundwort, creating this new and seemingly more   
functional system which was more in line with Efrafa's new found   
openness. The General had sometimes had four or five wide patrols out   
at once just looking for '...anything unusual. Anything unusual must   
be reported.' Campion, although the best wide patrol leader -   
something which had earned him more than a little respect from   
Woundwort, had decided that the old system was an expensive luxury.   
The losses had always been heavy, suiting the General's purposes -   
sorting the very best from the merely mediocre. The core that was left   
behind by the wide patrols ended up as the officers and captains of   
the Owsla and the entire Owslafa. This had lead to the situation in   
which a stranger, Thlayli, had infiltrated the warren. Losses of   
officers in the patrols lead to gaps that could not be filled quickly.   
The Efrafan Owsla was divided into those who had survived the wide   
patrols and those who we going to try. Obviously this has had its   
problems. Campion's solution was to reduce the level of patrolling,   
perhaps lowering the standard of his best officers but increasing the   
quality of the rest as the good, but not great, rabbits were not lost   
way beyond the borders of the warren. This gave a more balanced Owsla.   
In time it did have the effect of improving the overall standard but   
did not deprive the Owsla of prime officer material; indeed with the   
disbandment of the Owslafa there were now more than enough rabbits   
capable of officer duties. The rank and file now felt much more   
enthusiasm for the Owsla and this filtered up into the Owsla itself,   
they now responded to the new sense of purpose and responsibility,   
showing the patrols were not the only place in which an Efrafan rabbit   
could show his skills. Nonetheless holes had appeared in the defensive   
curtain around the warren, mainly along the four tracks where the   
sectors joined. To plug these gaps Campion had initiated the 'path   
watches'.  
This morning, due to the thick fog, which men seemed to dislike, only   
the south path watch was operating continuously as it was the most   
likely direction for men to come from - from the river and the iron   
road: the limit of the south inner patrol. The other watches were   
checked regularly. Avens had been volunteered for this duty and he was   
trying to carry it out. Having already been somewhat delayed by   
Sainfoin he risked going direct to the junction; in fact a tee formed   
by the east-west path that ran through Efrafa and s second track, used   
by the farmer for access to the fields north of the warren. It was   
normally a quiet enough spot, even though both tracks led to nearby   
roads. The most likely direction from which trouble might come was the   
south; the railway and the river; both of which seemed to the Efrafans   
to be strange man-places. So strange that no Efrafan had ventured   
beyond the river and come back to tell of what he had found. Not that   
many had ever actually tried.  
Luckily Avens did not suffer the same fate as Sainfoin had as   
he cut across the Near Hind sector; the mist had begun to lift and the   
sun, now well above the tree line, was drying and burning away the   
dense greyness. He passed under the fence at the edge of the thin   
strip of woodland through which the track ran. The light, though   
improving steadily, could not yet penetrate the tree curtain. Avens   
paused, using the sounds of morning to warn him of any danger. As he   
sat listening he heard at first only the expected and smelt only the   
familiar. He assumed that all was well and got up and started off   
through the leafless trees to the junction which lay some ten yards to   
his right.  
"Well perhaps," he thought, "I was a little lost." He hopped   
down from cover onto the track at the junction. He looked around:   
there seemed little out of the ordinary - all was still and calm.   
Nevertheless he felt something was amiss, and that whatever it was he   
would soon find it. He looked ahead, the ground rose sharply into a   
long ridge barely three inches high. "From there," he thought, "I   
could get a better view of the track." He tensed, ready to move   
forwards to the summit but he did not move; instead he sat upright,   
ears erect and looked up the length of the shallow trench. It had not   
been there before. The earth beneath his hind paws sank slightly as   
its wet surface gave way. "A hrududu." He thought. "Big too, by the   
look of these tracks." But still there was one more question to be   
answered. Why had no one reported it earlier? Surely a hrududu big   
enough to make tracks such as these must have made enough noise to be   
heard for miles? Avens moved forwards to the crown of the bottom of   
the track and looked across to the opposite band of undergrowth. He   
did not look for long. He felt a sudden wrench inside him and bolted   
back into the trees.  
Avens was by no means what one might call squeamish, after all   
he was an Owsla officer, trained on the old wide patrols. He had seen   
it all. Once, while out beyond the road that crossed the downs from   
southwest to northeast along Caesar's belt, his patrol officer had   
been shot as he stood barely a foot away. The shot had hit the side of   
his head leaving little behind. Avens had bolted into cover only to   
find the young Groundsel, on one of his first patrols, and a bright   
rabbit beside him. The man waited in the distance and picked off any   
of the patrol who showed so much as a whisker. Eventually the remnants   
had crawled away luck to have escaped the guns grim death. Later,   
Avens and that bright rabbit, Valerian, had grown to become good   
friends. Valerian's way of always having a suitable retort or a witty   
remark had earned him the liking of most of Efrafa. He was a charmer   
whom most does would have given a lot to get to know better. Frith   
always seemed to shine on Valerian. So for Avens to find his mutilated   
body beside the tracks that fog laden morning was a great shock. Some   
animal had evidently killed him but had been disturbed whilst   
disposing of the body for most of it seemed to be still beside the   
track.  
Avens ran back to the warren sick at the thought of the half-  
eaten body of Valerian, it flowed through his troubled mind, it seemed   
to multiply and shift through the mists all around; thousands haunting   
and hunting him no matter what he did of where he ran. Avens tried to   
strike and the misty rabbit that still dripped with warm blood but all   
he hit was the empty mist. Still he ran on blindly to the Crixa, where   
Campion sat alone where, when returning from wide patrols, he had met   
the General many times. He thought and remembered the day when, here   
under the elders, he had brought a ruggedly built  
hlessil before Woundwort. Little did he realise, but that stranger was   
to turn out to be the downfall of the General. The words that were   
said that fine July evening rang through his normally uncluttered   
mind, perhaps it was the mist....  
"...Thlayli, sir."  
"The Patrol brought you in I'm told. What were you doing?"  
"I've come to join Efrafa." The stranger had replied. Campion   
realised now what the stranger had really meant and in a strange way   
admired him for it. Campion was a straightforward no-nonsense   
character and he had seen this too in the strange rabbit from the   
warren destroyed by men from which, it had seemed, only he had   
survived.  
"Are you alone?"  
"I am now." The stranger had said. There was no denying it; it   
had been true. In fact for every question ha had had a truthful   
answer, he had not lied.  
The General and Campion himself had simply not asked the right   
questions. All Woundwort had needed to ask was:  
"How long have you been alone?" and all would have become   
clear. But such a question had not come easily to Woundwort.  
Suddenly Campion saw something moving through the folds of   
mist. He thought that whatever it could be, and it could not be very   
big, he was safest staying where he was - in the shelter of the fence.   
In the blue presence of a morning hardly anything was stirring. Most   
of the warren was below ground; only a few hardy souls trying to   
create an impression of nonchalance were nibbling what scarce little   
of the grass was available of the Off Fore's ground.  
But Campion, looking down towards the west junction did not see their   
wasted effort; instead he looked on as the shape mysteriously   
disappeared into the mist...  
Avens stopped as he approached Campion so as to give himself   
time to pull all the bits of himself together out of the mist. He   
dashed into the undergrowth and considered, as best he could, his   
situation. Something, probably a large hrududu, had passed along the   
west track. Almost definitely that something had killed Valerian,   
leaving what was left of him lying beside the path to be ravaged by   
whatever elil might have been passing. No, that evidently wouldn't do,   
firstly how could any hrududu that big have arrived without him   
hearing it down the south path? And secondly, how come elil had got so   
close to Efrafa? Try as he might, Avens could not tie up the ends of   
the problem into a plausible solution simply. He would just have to   
give the whole thing to Campion and retire to consider the matter   
further. Having regained his composure a little he made his way   
through the remaining thin strip of wood, and morning mist, to the   
Crixa.  
"...And so I came back to report it." Finished a flustered   
Avens. Campion, ever the careful strategist, considered what Avens had   
said with great care. Valerian, whom he had sent to the junction   
earlier that morning, long before dawn in fact, had indeed not   
reported back. It was now evident that something odd had been, or   
indeed still was, happening on Efrafa's doorstep (obviously Campion   
did not actually think of the concept of a doorstep, it is the closest   
approximation to the to the idea which formed in his mind which was   
the somewhat more cumbersome lapine equivalent of 'the warren's   
visible local ground'; that area of land which a rabbit could see from   
his hole). The distance of two thirds of a mile from the junction to   
the Crixa was a mere short hop, anything that close was bound to   
affect the warren, possibly detrimentally. That however was the least   
of Campion's worries. Whatever it was had occurred without Efrafan   
(well, it's chief rabbit at least) knowing about it for possibly hours   
and so it represented a serious breakdown in security.  
"I see, most distressing. You had better get below ground and   
get some rest." Campion said at length. Avens, obviously much   
troubled, moved off without a word. Campion called after him: "The   
Near Hind is that way." He indicated the direction by turning his head   
and stepping forward a pace. The still bemused officer stopped but   
made no move. Campion repeated the gesture, bringing him close to the   
woody brush that covered the bank. This time  
Avens moved off on a more accurate course. The Efrafan Chief Rabbit   
watched his officer until he had slipped through the hedge bordering   
the Near Hind's ground. "The General," he reflected, "may have been   
right after all...."  
The council were called into session hurriedly. Some, such as   
Chervil, complained at being woken so soon after dawn silflay. It was   
to be a long day. When eventually all the council had been assembled,   
Campion addressed them at length on the night's events. A long   
discussion broke out with accusations, counter accusations, prophesies   
of doom and suggestions being hurled around intermittently. Soon   
Campion realised that they were making no appreciable headway towards   
a coherent plan of action. Woundwort, had he ever allowed such an   
unruly event to occur, would have taken decisive and possibly violent   
action to bring the meeting to abrupt order. Campion had no need, the   
patrols had taught him that when faced with disorder and dissention he   
merely needed to stop commanding; to take, as it were, a back seat and   
watch events take their natural course. This he did in the closeness   
of the council chamber. One by one, the members stopped and stared at   
their chief rabbit wondering why he had dropped from his position of   
leadership, why he had left them alone in the dangerous and lonely   
world of the inexperienced wide patrol.  
At length Campion took to the offensive and gave the council   
a proposal for their approval, which they gave after a few murmurs of   
'too clever by half' from the rear of the burrow. A patrol, four   
strong, would be posted at the junction continuously, reporting back   
twice a day; at fu-frith and fu-inle. A second patrol, lead by Campion   
himself, would go out in the probably direction of whatever it was   
would have gone: i.e. straight along the track past the west junction.   
The north-leading track was obviously a non-starter - being blocked by   
a farm some half a mile away. Nothing the size suggested by Aven's   
description could get past the gate there and so it would have had to   
stop, in full view of the junction. Of course if it were to have come   
down from the farm, then it would mean a change of plan requiring a   
great deal of further, closer and complex investigation, but that was,   
so Campion thought, unlikely.  
By ni-frith, with the sun having chased the dawn blanket away   
leaving as clear and as pleasant an October morning as could be   
imagined, the patrol was on watch at the junction; Campion and his   
group disappearing into the fields beyond visible only to the high   
flying birds such as the sea birds forced inland from the coasts by   
the occasional gales and storms of the seas.   
  
Ends 


End file.
